What Conway is asking for now, after Trump’s win, is to return to a traditional gender role. She doesn’t want a job in the administration, because she wants to have time with her four kids, to help with homework and make meals. “My children are 12, 12, 8 and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside.”
.. She spoke about how she didn’t like the way Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated in the 2008 campaign. “I left the 2008 campaign feeling really icky,” she said. “I had two daughters at the time, now three, and we just can’t feel good about that. It’s great to ask how we’re making opportunities for women, but do we even have each other’s support, frankly, on our way there?”
She expressed no such misgivings about Trump’s 2016 run, in which he disparaged Carly Fiorina’s face, said both Clinton and Fiorina gave him headaches, used a vulgar word for female genitalia on the stump and suggested Megyn Kelly’s menstruation played a role in the Fox News personality’s tough questioning of him. He had previously fantasized publicly about a woman giving oral sex, fat-shamed a Miss Universe and spoke of the importance of having “a young, beautiful piece of ass.”
.. “I was always raised to respect the office of the presidency and its current occupant,” said the woman whose boss led the campaign questioning the current president’s legitimacy as a native-born American.
Challenging the Boss in Public? For Kellyanne Conway, It’s Part of the Job
By denouncing Mr. Romney even as Mr. Trump was preparing for their second meeting, this time over dinner on Tuesday, Ms. Conway was simply doing what she knows Mr. Trump likes: encouraging a public airing of conflicting views when he is unsure of what path to take.
.. What some saw over the weekend as an act of political defiance by Ms. Conway — undermining a potential cabinet nominee — was seen by Mr. Trump as a demonstration of loyalty, according to people who had talked to him. Her criticism of Mr. Romney articulated a view her boss had at times expressed: that Mr. Romney had tried to “hurt” him during the campaign and had yet to fully acknowledge it or apologize.
.. The president-elect is also well aware that she is one of his only female surrogates, and one who has become his ambassador to the news media.
The Munchkin Theory of Donald Trump
Kellyanne Conway was known in political circles for a catchphrase: “marriage, munchkins, mortgage and mutual funds.” It’s not as memorable as Trump’s “You’re fired,” but it represented a powerful argument: Women who were liberal when young would become more conservative — and become reliable Republican voters — as they formed families and became homeowners and investors.
How One Family’s Deep Pockets Helped Reshape Donald Trump’s Campaign
New York investor Robert Mercer, has carved an idiosyncratic path through conservative politics, spending tens of millions of dollars to outflank his own party’s consultant class and unnerve its established powers. His fortune has financed think tanks and insurgent candidates, super PACs and media watchdogs, lobbying groups and grass-roots organizations.
.. Kellyanne Conway, is a veteran Republican pollster who previously oversaw a super PAC financed by the Mercers.
.. Mr. Mercer reportedly invested $10 million in Breitbart several years ago
.. Mr. Trump is also relying on Cambridge Analytica, a voter data firm backed by Mr. Mercer
.. A Mercer-backed super PAC supporting Mr. Trump is now being shepherded by David Bossie, a conservative activist whose own projects have been funded in part by the Mercers’ family foundation, according to tax documents.
.. Mr. Mercer, 70, a mathematician and competitive poker player who spent his early career at I.B.M., joined Renaissance in the 1990s and rose to become the co-chief executive, earning hundreds of millions of dollars along the way. Today, he and his wife, Diana, live on a sprawling estate on Long Island’s North Shore where
.. They have given to libertarian organizations, such as the Cato Institute, and political organizations like the Club for Growth
.. Mercers were deeply involved in the Republican nominating battle this year
.. During the early phase of the campaign, Mr. Mercer donated $13 million to a super PAC supporting Mr. Cruz.
.. They were helped in part, according to a person who asked for anonymity to describe the family’s thinking, by Mr. Trump’s growing emphasis on traditional conservative ideas, such as tax cuts.
.. the family broke with Mr. Cruz in highly public fashion after his speech at the Republican convention, when the Texas senator refused to endorse Mr. Trump